One Day on a Friday Night

One Day on a Friday Night One Friday night, I was out fooling around with my friend Tej Sanghvi, celebrating his 16th birthday. We started the night out at Hooter’s and maneuvered our way into Birmingham. At The Palladium, we bought tickets to watch Fast and Furious 6, followed by a sleep over. Before we returned home, we could hear our stomachs growling, so we decided to stop and grab Thai food along the way. As we made our way to Bangkok Thai, the parking gods were shining down upon us, guiding us toward store front parking. We cruised the mean streets of Birmingham, our rattling trunk vibrating to the bass of our music, turning people’s heads as we passed, including a cop. I realized that this cop had been following us, but I didn’t care. I just cranked the music level and ignored the authorities. As I got to the U-turn that sent us back in the direction of my house, I noticed that the cop was still tailing me. Finally, I decided to lose the cop by heading in the opposite direction. A few miles into the home stretch, my older brother, friend, and I stopped at a stale red light. Since it was red, and the sign specifically said, “NO TURN ON RED,” I crept up to the white line, my front bumper barely casting a shadow upon it. I glanced in my rear view mirror, and was stunned to see sirens flashing as they closed in on us. I started to panic, and my nervous system instinctively engaged the fight or flight response. I tried to calm my nerves by retracing the events of the night, in an attempt to pinpoint any violations of the law, but came up empty. The cop got out of his car and headed his way over to us. Once he finally got to my car, he demanded that I roll down my window. His first question was, “Is this your vehicle, sir?” The officer was not concerned about who I was. It seemed that the first thing that hit the cops head was, why is a teenager driving such a nice and expensive car. At this point, my friend and I came to the conclusion that this cop